Finally my friends Magga and Sigurjon have had their babyboy !!! Til HAAAAMINGJU :) I cannot wait to see the two new superchick babies when I get home in January !!!
I did not get the bloodie splinter out of my thumb friday so it just had to stay there... but last night it looked a bit different and I started to squeeze and it popped out :) I was sooo glad since I thought it would have to get cut out. So splinter out, baby out... what a happy day :)
The computer at work that I use died on Friday, looked very virusie with "Matrix" lines appearing on the screen... very dodgie...

Now Ive got a big splinter that is half way through my thumb :( will need to do surgery on myself when I get home, very annoying... Even though my site is the best best best it does have some nasties... bloodie mozzies drove me crazy today and Ive got a big bite on my butt cheek, not very nice. Also giant ants called Jumping Jacks which are very nasty, got a bite on my leg few days ago, not very nice either. I havent seen snakes yet but I know they are there so on sunny warm days they come out and sunbathe and I have to be carefull not to step on them... It was graet out there today untill it started to rain, there is a popular surf beach quite close and I can see the surfers catching the waves. I bought a little tripod to sit on for the vege work, quite exhausting to look down on small plants for hours and hours but I am starting to get familiar with most of the common plants now :) Soooo many species !!! Im looking forward to a plant break over the weekend, then next week I will start again, well, we are taking bio students out trapping as well so hopefully I will have time to do my own work too... Have a great weekend, check out Une Soiree and other paintings by Jean Baraud.

I will never complain about a long queue (line) again... Yesterday Kylie and me waited for almost 2 hours to get tickets to the Impressionist exhibition. We did not see the big queue straight away and saw a fairly small one which turned out to be only for those who already had tickets. We looked around the corner and it was just packed with people in a long snake queue. Very long but so worth it :) I was so impressed, some of the paintings did nothing for me but there were some that completely captivated me. The colors, the details and how some of them just seemed to be alive. My favourite painter in the whole show was Jean Béraud and his painting ,The Party (Un soireé), was so amazing that I just lost my breath and kept coming back to it. That painting looks like it is three dimentional and I could imagine it would just start moving like the Hogwarts paintings :) I bought a print of it but it does not give the same effects like the real painting.

I got a bit toasted yesterday in the field and the weather was amaaaazing, sunny and warm. Since my studysite is on the Surf Coast there were loads of half naked people running around with their surfboards or on their bathers. Well there were not naked people ON my studysite but close to it :) My whole body is aching now, feels like I have been too long in the gym. I feel a bit like Tin man in the wizard from Oz...
Kylie and me are going to see the Impressionists today, Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay, with works by Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh and many more. Very exciting :)

Kylie and me had a great time at the Royal Melbourne Show yesterday. Great weather and lots to do and see. Unfortunately we missed the piglet race but we saw reptile man, puppet man (fantaaaaaaastic), 30 little sleeping kittens in a pile, lots of dogs, sheep and a lamb just after birth. We also went on a crazy ride (tivolitaeki) which went on for ever and ever and even I felt a bit sick afterwards. I guessed it would go 4-5 circles but no it was closer to 15-20, very dizzy. The show is known for its "Show bags" which are bags full of lollies (candy) or other stuff, every magazine, cartoon figure, candyfactury, radiostation (you name it) has a showbag. I even saw Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen show bag hehe. We tasted cheeses, wine, food, icecream, bread, olive oils, seeds, cactus tequila, coffe etc. In the end we were so tired that we almost did not make it back to the car but we had ad very good day :)
Today I have been in the field doing veg, lots of plants and mozzies so tomorrow I will bring my insect repellent. Great day, 23 degrees and sunny and tomorrow will be even better with 26 degrees :) yeiiiii

Not much happening, went trapping with Kylie but no animals on her site :( I am now prepairing next weeks field work. Will be doing the veg (vegetation), that is identifying all plant species in 200 spots on my field site. A lot of work but next week is supposed to be sunny and warm so its gonna be nice to be outside. Sunday me and Kylie are planning to go to the big Melbourne show, very exciting :) It will be good to have a day off tomorrow... Have a great weekend :) knuuuuus

Very busy weekend.. Took the train to M'bourne on Friday and Jacki and Geoff picked me up and drove me to their amazing holiday house near Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsula. The house is on a hill with great views over the bay. They drove me all around the Peninsula, the weather was quite bad but we still managed to see alot. The golf courses were flooded but still there were stubborn golfers torturing themselves. This weekend was the coldest in Septeber for 10 years or so going down to 3 degrees, brrrr. Saturday evening they took me to a Wine tasting event with all the local people and winemakers. Very interesting since it was a competition between Mornington Peninsula wines and Macedon wines. The bottles were covered up to begin with and we compared two types of white wine and 3 types of red wine from each wine area. 5 course meal and lots of fun and good coments from the winemakers. Sunday morning we took the ferry between Sorrento and Queenscliff and stopped by at Fred and Judys in Q'cliff for coffee. Then home and straight to Kates birthdayparty in Teesdale. Teesdale is between Geelong and Ballarat and they have goats in their backyard and a sweet one eyed dog. Big fiest at Kates and they had to roll me out of the house because I was so full.
Last night there was a film on Steven Hawking (called 'Hawking') on tellie which was really interesting. I have always been fascinated by the universe like some of you know and wanted to be an astronaut for years and years. But I have always doubted the big bang theory, (probably because I never fully understood it) so now i am intrigued to read more about it. So I went to the library this morning and got some books, among them 'A bried history of time' which I read parts of years ago but want to read again. I love it when I get inspired like this :)

So very tired now... last day of fieldwork this morning, Mandy came with me and we picked up the traps. 13 animals so that was quite good. zzz should go home and have a nap... Long weekend ahead, Jacki and Geoff (IAESTE friends) have a holiday house on the Mornington peninsula and they have invited me there for the weekend, winetasting and sigtseeing so that should be great fun :)

Three new minnies (A. minimus) with pouch young this morning and I did a LOT of clipping... wow the little pouch young are so amazing, about 40 days old, eyes still closed and they have their little claws, ears and tails... so adorable. Kylie and Kate came with me and we had an amazing morning, it rained a bit but it was not a big problem and we got very good video and photos. Yesterday I had my talk for the Field Nats and it went all right. I had eaten a KFC twister before with no drink and my mouth was so dry that it was sometimes a bit difficult to talk. I kept sipping water but all I wanted to do was to take a biiig gulp :) My talk was on Iceland, its geology and fauna with a lot of landscape pictures so hopefully I inspired some of them to come for a visit. The Icelandic government should pay me for all the promotion I am doing :)

So much to write and so little time... I have been so sooo busy lately. We drove the Great Ocean road with Ellen, Magali and her friends on Saturday which was fantastic ofcourse :) Great to see the Twelve Apostles again. We saw wild koalas up close and personal and one with a baby, the first koala joey I have seen, extreeeemely cute. We also saw a Rufous bristlebird which is one of Ellens rare species for her PhD. I have heard their calls often before but never seen the bird itself so that was great. Sunday and Monday I was by myself in the field putting up 200 traps for this weeks trapping. Great weather and really nice and warm on the best spot in Victoria, MY studysite :) So this morning me, Mandy and Bec went out to check the traps and we did the first toeclipping, very very exciting. The pouch young were much bigger than last time and everything went well. Next 2-3 mornings I will be in the field and I am dancing the sundance and hope the weather gods will be mercifull and dont let it rain :) Tonight I will be having a talk on Iceland for the Field Naturalist Club of Victoria so we will be off to Melbourne once again. Always nice to go to Melbourne :)

We've got a house full of people now. My friend Magali, french but lives in Iceland, came with two friends, Raphael and Sebastian and they will stay for few days. They brought me icelandic liqourice so I am extremely happy now :) They will be going on a nightwalk at Little River Earthsanctuary tonight, where Ellen works, to see all the endangered rare animals. Me and the girls are going to see Sheakspears Midsummernights dream in the theater and Kylie's friend Arelena will come too and stay in our house. Very crowded but lots of fun. Tomorrow we will drive the Great Ocean Road and cannot wait to see the Twelve Apostles again, and koalas, and hopefully migrating whales... Have a great weekend :)

Yeiiiii, my friends Hrönn and Addi finally had their baby girl, we have been waiting and waiting for days/weeks now :) Hrönn is one of my supergellu (superchick) girlfriends in Iceland, we are 10 all together, we met in highschool ages and ages ago and are still best friends :) This baby girl is the first superchick baby but there is another one coming very soon, Magga and Sigurjón have only few weeks untill their baby will join us. Unfortunately I wont see the babies untill January next year... I will spoil them rotten when I get home :) Pregnancy pictures of Hrönn and Magga are still very surreal to me since I have been here all the time they were pregnant. My mind wondered if they were just tricking me and had put pillows under their tops but now the reality had hit me. I have become a superchick auntie :)